Biofuels Good and Bad

If you’re unfamiliar with the debate it goes like this: Biofuels emit fewer greenhouse gases as they burn, but if you look at the life-cycle analysis—the emissions that result from both production and consumption—some biofuels actually emit more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels. That’s because it takes fossil fuel and nitrogen-based fertilizer to produce them, and because some, particularly palm oil, are produced on land that was, until recently, a rainforest.

Enter so-called second-generation biofuels. What exactly constitutes a second-generation—or “good”—biofuel remains somewhat unclear. Even recycling crop waste (corn stalks, for example) results in some emissions, since the waste would otherwise have been allowed to rot into the soil and fertilize it. Yet, crop waste is the new It-girl of biofuels.

An article in today’s Times does little to clarify the distinction. It talks about biofuels made from “pine waste,” whatever that is, in the same breath as biofuels made from old, contaminated phone poles.

I don’t know exactly where the line should be drawn, but I do know it needs drawing. I also really like the idea of recycling our human garbage—plastic, phone poles—to make fuel, if it can be done without toxic emissions. Shrinking landfills and reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the same time? Sounds almost too good to be true.